                1. The Field of the Invention        
The present invention relates to contact information for mobile phones. More particularly, the present invention relates to methods, systems, and computer program products for maintaining current contact and metadata information for multiple forms of communication with a contact that can be initiated from a mobile phone.
2. Background and Related Art
Mobile phones have become increasing sophisticated both in terms of hardware and software. Today, many mobile phones support access to a variety of data services, including email, web pages, and instant messaging. Traditionally, however, integration between the applications providing access to these data services has been poor. For example, mobile phones (and even personal computers for that matter) typically have maintained separate contact information for instant messaging and other applications. Furthermore, the presence, status, and other live contact information that make instant messaging such an attractive form of communication for many mobile phone users have not been available for other applications. As described in further detail below, this lack of integration detracts from the user experience and therefore tends to reduce mobile phone usage.
For example, as illustrated by mobile phone 100A of FIG. 1, dialer/email application 120A maintains email addresses 122A and phone numbers 124A, and instant messaging application 130A maintains instant messaging addresses 132A. Similarly, at PC 100B, contact/email application 120B maintains email addresses 122B and phone numbers 124B, and instant messaging application 130B maintains instant messaging addresses 132B. Among other things, separate contact information requires selecting a desired application and then a contact within that application in order to initiate communication with the contact. In other words, to send an instant message to the sender of an email message being read in email application 120A, instant message application 130A must be selected first and only then can the corresponding instant message address for the sender of the email message be selected from instant message addresses 132A—it simply is not possible to initiate an instant message from email application 120A. Furthermore, because the contact information is separate, instant message application 130A may not have contact information for the sender of the email message. So even after the extra effort of switching applications, it may not be possible to initiate an instant message. For most mobile phone users, missing contact information and changing from one application to another in order to select a contact detract from a positive user experience.
With separate contact information for different applications, it also has not been possible to maintain accurate metadata for a contact across applications. For example, there is no indication in dialer/email application 120A whether or not a contact is currently online or otherwise available. Metadata is helpful, however, because it provides a social context for initiating communication based on a contact's current availability. That is, if a contact is currently attending a meeting, it may not be appropriate to reach the contact with a voice call, but an email or even an instant message may be acceptable depending on the circumstances. Metadata information provides clues into what form of communication is best suited to reaching a contact, given the current circumstances.
Because contact information is application specific, mobile phone users enter contact information for each application manually. As a result, contact information is duplicated between the applications, and as noted above, often is incomplete. For example, a contact's name would be entered at least twice in mobile phone 100A: once for dialer/email application 120A and once for instant messaging application 130A, assuming a user goes through the trouble of manually adding contact information for each application. Since contact information usually is entered as needed, it is difficult for users to remember what contact information has been entered for each application. At times, therefore, users may think that email addresses 122A include an email address for a contact or that instant message addresses 132A include an instant message address for a contact, when in reality, only a phone number has been entered for the contact. Having email addresses 122B, phone numbers 124B, and instant messaging addresses 132B at PC 100B often contributes to this confusion because the user may remember having entered the information without remembering where the information was entered.
In order to improve the usability of certain applications, limited synchronization software has been developed for mobile phones. For example, the dialer/email application 120A of mobile phone 100A includes synchronization software 140A. Synchronization software 140A connects dialer/email application 120A to contact information at personal computer 100B through data link 160 and synchronization software 140B. Synchronization software 140A and 140B is helpful because it allows email addresses 122A and 122B and phone numbers 124A and 124B to be shared between mobile phone 100A and PC 1001B. Note, however, that the synchronization software does not synchronize IM addresses 132A and 132B. While it may be possible to develop and load separate synchronization software for different applications, this solution leads to poor utilization of mobile phone resources and user confusion.
It also should be noted that use of data link 160 in conjunction with synchronization software 140A and 140B is part of an explicit synchronization operation. Mobile phone 100A must be in relatively close proximity to PC 100B in order to make a cable, infrared, or other wireless connection prior to initiating the synchronization software. Once the connection has been made, synchronization software 140A can be initiated on mobile phone 100A and synchronization software 140B can be initiated on PC 100B. During synchronization, mobile phone 100A generally is unavailable for other tasks. Some mobile phones have the ability to synchronize directly with a server, and therefore in some circumstances, PC 100B may be replaced by a server.
After the user-initiated synchronization of email addresses 122A and phone numbers 124A, which is only a subset of the contact information at mobile phone 100A, the connection is broken (i.e., the connection is not a continuous live connection) and contact information on mobile phone 100A and on PC 100B is subject to becoming stale as changes or updates are made, and even after synchronization, no metadata, such as status or presence information, is available. Furthermore, because no backup copy is created for changes made to contact information at the mobile phone 10A, updated contact information at mobile phone 100A is at risk of being lost as a result of hardware, software, and/or power failures, or if the mobile phone 100A is misplaced. Accordingly, methods, systems, and computer program products that maintain current contact and metadata information for a contact that allows multiples forms of communication to be initiated from a mobile phone are desired.